Ledyard boys soccer edges Killingly for 1st win

Wednesday

Sep 18, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 18, 2013 at 6:02 PM

The last two years have brought 29 wins, two Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament appearances, three Class M tournament wins and a quarterfinal berth last season for the Ledyard High School boys’ soccer team, returning the Colonels to prominence after a few down years.

Owen Poole

The last two years have brought 29 wins, two Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament appearances, three Class M tournament wins and a quarterfinal berth last season for the Ledyard High School boys’ soccer team, returning the Colonels to prominence after a few down years.

This season began with two one-goal losses, before Ledyard even got into the teeth of the ECC Large Division schedule.

On Tuesday, in their third game of the year, the Colonels put together six shots on goal and a few other good scoring chances in the first half against Killingly, but couldn’t find the back of the net.

“It’s a whole new game at halftime,” Ledyard’s Joe Astuti said. “You have to start it off clean. After 40 minutes and no goals, you want one.”

Astuti scored less than a minute into the second half, and the Colonels hung on for a 1-0 win, their first of the year.

Despite having 12 seniors on the roster, Ledyard has just three returning starters from a year ago.

“Last year a lot of juniors found themselves on JV,” Ledyard coach Bill Glenney said. “Now they come up to varsity and it shows. They’re not quite used to the pace of play, how quick it is. It’s a step up. Last year I had 11 kids in 11 positions and every one of them could do everything. We didn’t have to worry about whether the ball went somehwere if someone could do something with it.”

On Ledyard’s goal, junior Ben Gill made a through pass over the Killingly defense to a streaking Astuti, who took two touches and beat Killingly keeper Andrew Klawitter (11 saves).

Two minutes later, Ledyard’s Walter Factor took a hard shot from outside the 18-yard line and Klawitter made a leaping save.

“Outside of the mental mistake by one back in the first minute of the second half, this game is probably going to be zeroes throughout because neither team really had many chances,” Killingly coach Roland Frechette said.

The Redmen were coming off a 4-0 win over Tourtellotte and now have a week off before hosting Montville on Tuesday in their first ECC Medium game.

“We played better on Saturday, we started to put things together,” Frechette said. “(On Tuesday) we ended up playing a lot of kickball and I wasn’t real happy with that, but that’s the nature of the game sometimes. We pressed, but we didn’t give up.”

With the Colonels’ first win under their belt, Glenney knows there’s a long season left.

“Our role players from last year are having trouble adjusting to being leaders,” he said. “They’re the ones who are supposed to motivate us. They’re getting better. They’re all good kids and they’re certainly trying, but it’s a different environment.”